Every online store owner should have an effective Shopify inventory management solution. And rightly so. One key element that helps your Shopify store grow is how well you manage your inventory.
Poor inventory management causes delays, overstocking, huge expenses, and unhappy customers, especially if you accidentally accept an order you don’t have stock for. Fortunately, these proven tips can help every store owner manage their inventory stress-free.
Shopify inventory management refers to the methods used to control inventory holding levels, reduce costs and manage stock requirements. While more of an issue for physical products, inventory can also be set for digital products if you are looking to only offer a limited quantity of a certain digital product.
No doubt, inventory management is the heart of a successful Shopify store. The goal here is to cut the cost of maintaining inventory while ensuring consistent stock levels and faster deliveries. For many merchants, managing inventory effectively is all about striking a balance between ensuring enough stock is available at all times, without overstocking or wasting product.
Keep reading to learn the importance of Shopify inventory management.
Imagine this scenario. A shopper orders an item from your Shopify store. You receive the order and dispatch it to the warehouse just to find out that the item is not in stock. Even worse, you ship the wrong product.
This is often common with a poorly managed inventory. Creating a plan can help you avoid wrongly filled orders, loss of customer base, and high return rates.
What’s more, it’s hard to know which products to stock up on if there is no clear way to tell what you’ve stocked. Poorly managed inventory can make you overstock items. However, detailed inventory management prevents these issues. It does this by letting warehouse administrators refresh inventory only when necessary.
Several great benefits can result from proper inventory management. Here are some added benefits to note:
A good Shopify inventory management tool can help you track inventory accurately not just for each product, but for each individual variant. This helps you know exactly what’s selling, what’s not, and what you’re almost out of.
With Shopify inventory management, you can change the quantities for bulk product variants and locations showing on your store. When you import bulk inventory adjustments, they’ll appear in columns and rows of data.
Once you have your inventory tracked, you will be able to let your customers know when products are out of stock. This prevents overselling, but it also opens new doors – you can add a warning to products with low inventory levels, creating buyer urgency and encouraging your customers to make a purchase.
Efficient inventory management begins with having the best practices. Keep these tips in mind for an accurate inventory management:
Keeping your products organized helps you know the “most ordered items” and how they roll out of your inventory. This act allows you to focus more on profitable products.
Some merchants audit inventory monthly or weekly, while others do so once each year. Regardless, conduct audits to make sure you have accurate stock quantity. This will help you manage your stock flow and keep inventory moving smoothly.
Keeping your customers happy should be your goal. To make sure this happens, you need to manage your inventory correctly. If you have low inventory and customers can’t order, you’ll lose sales and profits. Even worse, your customers may not return to your store anymore. No one wants to lose customers, so make sure you focus on keeping your customers satisfied.
When you hire the right people, you can focus on other business areas. An inventory manager, in this case, can keep track of every item. Also, they will always be available when it’s time to deal with suppliers and pay invoices.
A good Shopify inventory management app makes managing your stock effortless. Apart from saving you time, it can also help reduce the risk of overselling. Good inventory management software for Shopify also enhances inventory accuracy. Make sure you get an app that integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack.
Many small businesses begin with inventory management methods like spreadsheets or just good old pen and paper. However, this solution makes you more vulnerable to business errors.
Using effective Shopify inventory management software opens lots of new doors. These benefits include user permissions, automated sale orders, year-end inventory reports, and more. This software helps you control how inventory moves from suppliers to shoppers.
Thankfully, Shopify retailers can select from different reliable Shopify inventory management apps. A few examples of apps for inventory management include:
Stock Sync is one of the best Shopify inventory management apps. This application lets users automatically edit and categorize inventory. The app also manages many suppliers and tracks the stock of other retailers’ websites.
Top features:
Stocky helps sync orders and merchandise between your store and other online stores. This software lets merchants check any changes in their storehouse and organize their inventory more efficiently. With stocky, you can track what comes in and leave your store to reduce inventory loss.
Top features:
Shopventory helps make managing your inventory easy. The software seamlessly connects and handles every sales channel in one place. Also, it completely integrates Shopify with your POS for efficient inventory management.
Top features:
Good news for PickyStory users! Whenever you use PickyStory to create bundles and other deals, your inventory is automatically synced with Shopify in real time.
This means that if you create a bundle containing products A, B, and C and your customer purchases this bundle, your inventory levels for products A, B, and C will each be reduced by one in your Shopify backend, automatically.
It also means that if one of the products in your bundle is out of stock, the app automatically recognizes this and your customers are unable to purchase the out of stock product.
PickyStory deals only take a few minutes to set up, and can simply be dragged and dropped onto your pages – no code required. Once you choose your theme, install PickyStory, create your deals, add optional discounts, and position the deal widgets on the desired portion of your product pages, or add to your collections, or display deals in the cart. It’s that easy!
Managing an online store might be stressful and daunting. But with Shopify inventory management and PickyStory, your day-to-day sale activity will no longer be tedious. This feature will help you track orders and oversee transfers from other suppliers.
Also, Shopify inventory management apps will help modify inventory when changes are made. Besides, Shopify inventory management also offers an exhaustive report to help you decide on a strategy for each product.
If you’re looking for more Shopify tips and recommendations, check out the PickyStory blog.
Good Luck!
PickyStory is the e-commerce conversion platform. It enables merchants to uplift their revenue in store. PickyStory offers a variety of deals like Bundle Products, Combo Products, Bundle Builder, Kits, Looks, and coupons.
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